


The Autopsy Of Peggy Schuyler

by casstayinmyass



Series: Fandoms and Horror Movies [3]
Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Alternate Universe - Horror, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Blood and Gore, Blow Jobs, Body Horror, Coroner Husbands, Corpses, Domestic Fluff, Explicit Language, Gen, Graphic Description of Corpses, Hold On For The Wild Ride, James Is Done With His Shit But He Loves Him, Kissing, M/M, Medical Jargon, Mild Sexual Content, Mild Smut, Mystery, Oral Sex, Pain, Police Officer Burr, Scary, Sexual Humor, Smoker Thomas, Supernatural Elements, Suspense, Thomas is A Sassy Fuck
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-31
Updated: 2017-01-31
Packaged: 2018-09-21 02:45:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 9,109
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9528422
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/casstayinmyass/pseuds/casstayinmyass
Summary: When two married coroners investigate the death of a young woman named Margaret Schuyler, they find increasingly bizarre clues. A relentless Virginian storm rains them into their basement morgue, and figuring out Peggy's mystery becomes more and more necessary for survival... and for sanity.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is based on a new film called "The Autopsy of Jane Doe", which you should totally watch if you haven't. It's scary, which I hope this story is too! :)
> 
> ((also yes, Jefferson had a mockingbird named Dick in real life))
> 
>  
> 
> rip Peggy 2k17

"Thomas.... _Thomas_!"

James snapped in front of Thomas Jefferson's face, waking him from a momentary space out. They couldn't afford to space out when they were this close to arriving at a COD.

"Hm? Sorry," the taller man managed, grinning, "I was wandering."

"Wander later," his boyfriend raised an eyebrow, "We still don't know if this guy..." he checked the toe tag, "Hugh Mercer, died of smoke suffocation or a cerebral hemorrhage." He offered Thomas a scalpel.

"You're so fucking serious all the time," Thomas complained, snatching up the scalpel.

"Cutting open a body is serious business," James replied plainly, and took off his plastic gloves to take down some notes. "Now based on what we've seen in his nasal passageways-"

"Cerebral hemorrhage," Thomas concluded, tossing the scalpel back down with a clatter, "No need to cut, it's obvious. Look, Jemmy- right there, under the brain? There's a fracture right under the pituitary." James squinted, and his eyes widened a little.

"Damn... you're right."

"Shocker. Great, case closed, COD cerebral hemorrhage!" Thomas beamed, prancing around and wheeling the body away, "That means we're done early, and can still catch that movie!"

"Thomas..."

"Then go for dinner!"

"Thomas-"

"Then have the dirtiest sex you can _possibly_ fathom- I wanna be tied up tonight, Jemmy."

"Thomas!"

"What?" the taller man pouted, anticipating a let-down, but James just smiled a little, leaning up to peck him on the lips.

"That sounds wonderful."

Just as they were washing up and exchanging promises for later, they heard a knock upstairs.

"I'll get it," Thomas muttered, and shook his wet hands off. He could use this as an excuse to have a cigarette, which James never let him do in the house, much less downstairs, due to his allergies and susceptibility to bronchitis.

"Who would come all the way out here to the country to pay us a visit this late?" James frowned.

"A desperate motherfucker whose car broke down?" Thomas guessed, and jogged down the hallway to the old, rusty elevator, not before checking his hair in the corner mirror. Riding up, he noticed how the iron gate didn't close all the way... he'd have to fix that at some point. Getting to the top, he opened the front door of their little country home, to find-

"Burr?" Thomas asked, "What're you doing here with a body at my door at-" he checked the time and scowled- "god damn 8 PM?"

"You're still a coroner, right?" Burr, the Virginia county police chief, deadpanned, "Or have you decided to pursue your lifelong dream of running for president?"

"You show up at my door, you ridicule my political aspiration-"

"You aced poli sci in high school, yes, I see you did a lot with that."

Thomas scoffed. "How rude." He looked behind him, then stepped out onto the porch to pull out a cylindrical stick, placing it between his lips to nurse his habit. Suddenly, Thomas and James' pet mockingbird, Dick, came bouncing over, pecking at Burr's head.

"Did you train him to do that?" Burr frowned, swatting at it.

Thomas smirked, lighting his cigarette. "The little homey's incredibly intuitive." The bird made a cheerful little hooting noise, and Thomas beamed at it.

"Ow... _owww_ , do you even know how illegal it is to keep this damn bird?!" Aaron grimaced.

"I could still report you at any time for plagiarizing your letter of intent from Alexander in college," Thomas pointed out. Burr pulled at his collar a little, and handed the bird to him, which Thomas kissed affectionately. "Anyway, I could have been eating at this time."

"Oh, I'd hate to interrupt your mac and cheese, Tommy."

"Uhhh, I very well could have been partaking in some, yes." He took a few last, speedy drags before putting his cigarette out, and set Dick down in his cage, closing it. Aaron crossed his arms.

"This takes precedence. Where's James? He'll need to hear this too." Reluctantly leading the chief to the elevator, down the long, relatively brightly lit hallway, and on to their basement lab, Thomas announced their entrance.

"Put your pants back on, Jemmy, the fuzz are here."

Burr's eyes widened a little, but James just came around the corner, rolling his eyes as he wiped blood from his hands. "Bring it in, Mr. Burr."

"I normally wouldn't want to bother you guys this late," Burr began, eyeing Thomas warily, "But this one's got me stumped- we found her in someone's basement, buried underneath the boards. I need a cause of death by tomorrow morning."

"Fucking shit!" Thomas burst out with, "Tomorrow morning?! Asshole?!"

"Don't swear at the chief of police, Thomas."

"The _chief of police_ can eat my whole ass-"

"No, that's my job."

"Gotta go, boys!" Burr called, backing away down the hallway, "I really do appreciate it!"

"Ha," Thomas muttered, shaking his mane of curls, "Well, date night's fucked. And, as a result, I will not be."

"This is our job," James sighed, "The sex can wait."

"Really?" Thomas asked, unbuttoning his white frock a little. James couldn't keep his eyes off.

"Wha... what are you-"

"You _sure_ about that?"

"Stop that-"

"I will not stop that," Thomas grinned, licking his lips as he fully unbuttoned his shirt.

"Why are you like this?" James moaned, letting Thomas successfully drape his arms over his smaller shoulders.

"Like what...?" Thomas breathed, ghosting his lips over James' ear.

"Like..." James swallowed, "Oh, fuck..."

"Hello there," Thomas chuckled, waving down at James' tented pants, and James let out a frustrated groan.

"Blowjobs, nothing more."

"Until we can get to more..."

" _Until_ we finish this autopsy."

"Acceptable," Thomas whispered, dropping to his knees.

"You didn't turn the camera on, right?" James suddenly asked, and gritted his teeth when he didn't get an immediate answer. "You know, the camera we use to record the autopsies and send to the bureau of investigation?"

Thomas swallowed. "Well, I just... I was thinking we could edit it a little and keep the beginning for ourselves, and-"

"Shut the damn thing off, Thomas, right now."

Thomas rolled his eyes at his beloved curmudgeon, getting up and switching the camera off as James watched him wearily. He was too much of a narcissist for his own good- he would have ceiling mirrors installed over their bed if James didn't have a say in it. After a second, Thomas returned to his knees, and James considered something.

"Is it weird that we fuck in a morgue sometimes?" he muttered, as Thomas took him out of his pants.

"I mean, I don't think it's a common thing for most couples to do, unless... y'know, you're into necrophilia, but..."

"Okay, just shut up and suck me off," James sighed, rubbing a hand over his face. After a few strokes and Thomas' talented tongue manoeuvres, James came quickly down Thomas' throat. In return, Thomas didn't last long- he was already filled out and aching when James took his thick length into his mouth. A couple of minutes later, Thomas finished as well, and they righted themselves, washing up and putting their scrubs back on.

"I can't believe you," James muttered.

"Hey, I wasn't the one who popped a boner when I took my shirt off!"

"You're very attractive without a shirt on, Thomas!" James shot back.

"I know, but that's not the issue on the table."

"The issue on the table-" James replied curtly, directing their attention back to the covered body on their slab, "Is this."

"Male or female?"

James checked the tag, and unzipped the bag. "Female. Identified as a Margaret Schuyler, by a locket found around her neck. That's the only thing they found on her body... she was found otherwise naked." Thomas switched the camera on to record.

"Subject is in her early to mid twenties, hair brown, skin tone almond." Thomas tied his hair up in a bun. "Peggy, Peggy, Peggy," he trilled, "What the hell happened to you? Heart attack? Drug overdose? Old age, hmm?"

"Sometimes I wish they could just tell us," James murmured, ignoring Thomas' obvious quip. He pulled back the lower half of the sheet to reveal the rest of her body. "Oh, shit."

"Oh!"

"Oh wow," James echoed, frowning deeply, "Certainly not old age. She looks young. And.... fresh?"

"As a watermelon. But Burr said she'd been found under someone's house, when they were fixing a leak in their basement... who knows how long she would've been down there for."

"But she looks like she died.... jesus, an hour or so ago!"

"Yeah," Thomas muttered, inspecting her smooth skin, "Weird."

"Very weird. Even weirder that her eyes are already clouded- she would've had to have cataracts, and judging by the perfect condition of the rest of her body and skin..."

"Welp... sharpen the knives, Jemmy, we're goin' in!" Thomas shouted, and James rubbed his temples. 


	2. Chapter 2

Thomas put on his glasses, and they pulled back the sheet all the way; as they did, James found himself staring at her still face. Sometimes, it got to him- how the people they were cutting into smiled once, brushed hair out their face once, cried once... then he remembered that they were dealing with nothing but a carcass of flesh.

"You getting sappy?" Thomas asked, snapping on his gloves.

"No," James scowled.

"Good. It's the family's job to mourn, James, not ours."

Lamp pulled close, Thomas took X Ray shots of her, and examined them in the light. "Spine is intact... fibula intact... ank- oh, fuck!"

"What is it?" James looked over, setting Peggy's arm down. Her body was unnervingly bereft of bruising or even decomposition, but in light of Thomas' new observation, this did not carry into her bone structure.

"Her ankles are fucking wrecked, babe," Thomas murmured, and rolled her feet around. They made sickening cracking noises, and James hummed thoughtfully, watching the bones shift unnaturally under the skin. "With no external signs of trauma..." On a hunch, the shorter man lifted her arms, to find her wrists dangling at a strange angle as well. "And there's stuff under her nails."

"Skin?"

"No... a pete of some sort, I think?"

Thomas frowned. "Pete? That's only found way north, in like... New York." Then, James opened her mouth to inspect her teeth, and found-

"Oh," he breathed, staring in. Thomas joined him, and after adjusting his glasses, winced.

"Tongue cut off. Non-surgically, it looks like... her bottom right molar is missing as well." Taking down some notes, Thomas then reached between her legs and parted them, examining past her labia with a flashlight. "Double fuck," he muttered, prodding around gently, "Hell of a lot of tearing and loose tissue." When he pulled his gloved fingers from her, he frowned a little at the discharge on them, mixed with some congealed blood... she was _dead_. She shouldn't have active discharge.

"Fractured ankles and wrists to prevent escape... severed tongue to prevent calling for help, vaginal trauma..." James looked up, pursing his lips. "Burr didn't tell you what this was about?"

"Not a word," Thomas continued to frown, "Do you really think it could be...?"

"We can't rule it out," James replied, walking over to the chalkboard, "And it seems pretty likely, but we've still got to take a blood sample to be sure the cause of her death wasn't anything internal."

"Shit. Burr sure stuck us with a good one tonight."

A crack of thunder suddenly echoed outside the dim basement room. The overhead lights flickered slightly, and the radio switched on to a garbled golden oldies station. Thomas sighed, clenching his jaw. "I never thought I'd say this, but at least we're stuck in here. It's shit outside." He narrowed his eyes at the body. "Pegs is hiding something from us." The radio continued to play a fitzed version of music Thomas' grandmother used to play.

_So let the sun shine in,_

_Face it with a grin_

_Smilers never lose_

_And frowners never win,_

"We'll find out by the end of the night," James mumbled, polishing the sternal saw for cavity incision.  

"It is the end of the night," Thomas retorted, going over to fix the radio.

"Not for us," James said, and made a V cut just above her breasts. Blood began to stream out of the cut... too much blood.

"What the...?" Thomas came back to the table, staring over James' shoulder.

"She's bleeding like a stuck pig," James murmured, "That's not right."

"She's fucking dead," Thomas shook his head. James ran over the options in his mind, all the possibilities he learned about way back in med school.

"Well... sometimes if there's a buildup of pressure or internal bleeding..."

Thomas waved his hand. "Whatever. She's not the bloodiest we've had- remember that Charles Lee guy from last week?" He jerked a thumb back to one of the doors in their morgue, where Lee was stored, among the others they had examined- Hugh, a torture victim named Abigail Adams, and a drowning victim named Dolly Todd. Each of them had their own individual bell attached to their big toe. ("Just in case they decided to take a stroll we don't know about," Thomas had joked, and James let him keep the stupid 18th century tradition.)

"Lee got shot in the face at point blank range, he had a reason for bleeding," James sighed, "Peggy's just..."

"A rare case," Thomas concluded factually, and grabbed a small container, letting some blood run down into it before packing it up for storage and testing. James prodded the sides of Peggy, using his finger as relative measurement...

"Her waist is oddly tiny, Thomas."

Thomas turned. "Could it just be shrunken after death? Internal bloating around the bladder and hips?

"No... there's nothing inside her cavity that suggests bloating."

"Well... think about what could have caused shrinking around the waist- something women wore to keep their stomach in and train their figure."

"A corset?"

"Yeah! They don't wear those anymore, of course, not for extended periods of time." The taller man began to frown as he thought this through. "Which makes it... even weirder that her body is so fresh on the exterior."

James shook his head, staring down into the corpse's cold, dead eyes. She was a damn mystery. As James dug into the corpse further, using the rib shears to open up her interior a little more, Thomas looked over his shoulder to grab another scalpel to help, and his eyes widened.

"Shit..." He ran over to the fridge that contained the sample, grabbing a few paper towels. When he opened it, it was even worse- the blood from Peggy's sample was leaking all the way down from the top shelf, pooling out over the surrounding floor.

"Thomas, stop messing around and come help me," James mumbled around a utensil he held in his mouth, and Thomas balked.

"H-Hold on, I... I gotta clean this up, I must not have screwed this lid on tight enough." Staring at the sample curiously, Thomas set it aside, and wiped up the blood. It still didn't make much sense... how could a sample so small leak all over the place like this? He began to feel a little nervous, but immediately shook it off. Coming back over to the table, Thomas grabbed the utensil from his husband's mouth and began to carve around the lungs with him.

"I am honestly dumbfounded," James remarked, leaning against the table. Thomas' mouth hung open as he examined the tissue closely.

"Either Peggy took chain smoking to a whole new level, or she was torched from the inside out."

"You could smoke ten packs a day more than you do, and it wouldn't do this kind of damage," James murmured, lifting up layers of singed tissue, "These are third degree burns... according to this woman's lungs, she should look like a mummy!"

"Damn," Thomas sighed, "Any theories for this one?"

James pursed his lips, looking back to their idea board. "None that I can immediately formulate."

Just then, the lamps flickered again, another crack of thunder booming. The rain seemed to get harder against the side of the house, which the two were so far down under they could barely hear anyway- what they could hear, was the radio station switching again.

_Open up your heart and let the sunshine in_

_When you are unhappy the devil wears a grin_

_But aw, he starts to running when the rain comes pouring in_

"Shit, grandma!" Thomas joked, "If I wanted to commune with your spirit, I'd get a damn ouija board! Fuckin' storm... can't even get outside for a smoke." He turned the knob back to classical music, which he and James both very much enjoyed. The soft notes of violin filled the morgue, but James looked even more perplexed, deep in thought.

"Thomas, look at this."

Thomas went over, and immediately noticed the scratches, cuts, and scars all over her organs prevalent after moving the lungs. "Stab wounds," Thomas concluded, "She's been stabbed..." he quirked his head, "from the inside?"

"I..." James threw up his hands, rubbing the patch of facial hair on his chin. Thomas cut a few muscles, and got a few specks of blood on his cheek and glasses from the small spurt. Picking up the heart and rolling it around carefully in his hands, he noticed just how many times it had been sliced into and healed.

"There are _actual_ scars on her heart... her kidneys, her liver, too... yet there's nothing that would show she's been mutilated like this from the outside!" he marvelled, turning the heart over in his hands and squeezing gently.

"Marks from birth?" James suggested weakly.

"Impossible," Thomas mumbled, holding the organ up to the overhead, "You can clearly see the damage where the blade entered." He peered down into the open cavity. "Same with the kidneys... you and I both know what scar tissue looks like, James."

James nodded, clearing his throat. "Let's open up the stomach." Thomas normally would have made a joke about haggis there, but given the circumstance and the build of the blustering storm outside, he was beginning to feel on-edge down in their basement morgue. He allowed himself a look around, over to the fridge, to the organized vault of bodies, to the crematorium... their morgue never affected either of them, even though it was a creepy cellar, essentially. It was just where they worked, put simply, and they felt right at home.

Until that night.

Something didn't feel right. Of course, Thomas knew it was his nerves working up- he was probably just unsettled by the fact that he couldn't solve a case in less than an hour, like usual. It was a pride thing, for sure. James, on the other hand, was openly admitting to himself that the sheer abnormality of the situation was giving him the heebies... now, he was invested. He _had_ to find out what had happened to Peggy Schuyler.

Suddenly, they heard a scratching noise out in the hallway.

"James?" Thomas whispered. James looked over at his husband. He had heard it too.

"...I'll go."

"No-" Thomas put a firm hand on James' arm, eyes wide, then cleared his throat, grinning with a dismissive little wave. "No way, uh, you... you stay here, I'll just go check on the heating system, it's just acting up again." He chuckled, and James gave a half-hearted nod, watching Thomas walk over to the door.

Taking off his bloody gloves, Thomas twisted the doorknob, and stepped out into the hallway. It was dark... the lighting out here must have blown with the storm, or it was dying at least, as one single, suspended bulb at the end of the hall flickered on its own.

"Thomas?" James called, and Thomas took a deep breath, straightening up. It was a damn dark hallway, not the road to damnation he was about to endure.

"Yeah, I'm fine, James, just- just stop being a little bitch about it and let me go check the heat." James frowned, listening to Thomas' footsteps disappear down the hallway. He was such an asshole sometimes.

"How many doors does it take to reach the fucking boiler room?" Thomas sing-songed to himself, mostly as a way to overpower the deafening silence and patter of the rain outside. He felt a chill run through him, and turned to look behind him... nothing. Of course it was nothing. Shit! He was a mortician, he shouldn't be scared of a little mystery.

"Remember that guy who Burr brought in with the subdural hematoma?" Thomas continued to chat with himself softly, "Well, that took two hours to solve."

_That guy wasn't stabbed and burned internally._

Thomas shook himself, then as he turned back, caught something in the corner of his eye. There was something in the mirror- the same mirror he always checked his appearance in- at the top of the wall for the corner visibility.

"Whaaaat?" Thomas breathed, barely audible, and backed up a little. It was... a shadow? A... person? "Fuck, fuckin'... fuck..." Did Burr come back? Was he checking up on them? "James?!" No answer. He turned to make it to the boiler room, and when he found the door, he turned back to check. There was nothing in the mirror, except for James peeking his head out the door of the morgue.

"What? Are you okay?!"

"Yeah... yeah, I'm..." Thomas trailed off, not bothering to finish that sentence except with a punctuating laugh, and opened the door to go and check the heater. Hearing the same scratching upon entering, the nerves began again- it was coming from the air vent. Quickly opening the vent, he peered in. He couldn't see shit in the darkness of the small tunnel, so he fumbled for his phone, which was almost dead. Pulling it out and holding it up, Thomas squinted.

There was definitely something in there...

"What are you-" Thomas began, then whatever it was flashed forward, sending him crashing back off the chair and into a cabinet full of papers. From where it fell, his cracked phone blinked dead, and James, upon hearing the loud noise and Thomas' garbled cry, came running in, helping him up and checking for any blood.

Thomas groaned, grabbing his back. "COD- fucking spinal fracture."

"Don't joke," James told him sternly, steadying him.

"Shit..." Thomas muttered, sticking a hand down his back pocket, "I broke my glasses." James sighed.

"We'll drive into town tomorrow for new ones. What the hell happened?"

"I was..." Thomas swallowed, "Investigating the vents, and there was this-" He shook his head, unable to go on, so James checked hesitantly, carefully standing the chair back up and elevating himself to look. A small gasp escaped his lips.

"Oh," he said softly, and Thomas looked over tensely, fear evident in his eyes.

"What is it?"

"It's..." James stated sadly, and reached in to pull out a small lump of white and grey feathers.

"No," Thomas whimpered, eyes welling, "Jemmy no, it's not..."

James nodded, and Thomas bit his lip, willing himself not to cry. The thing was with that bird, it was more than just a pet to the man. Thomas was always a pretty shy person, which was hard to believe. It was his mockingbird that had gotten him through a lot of that... talking to it through college, singing little showtunes with it, even discussing the first dates he had with James with Dick when he was younger.

"I don't even know how he got out of his cage," Thomas mused, staring at the poor little heap.

"Crematorium?" James asked softly, placing a hand over Thomas', and Thomas nodded sullenly.

"Crematorium."

The bird meant a lot more to Thomas than it had to James, even though the shorter man had developed a certain fondness for him through the years of living with his now husband. He made sure to give Thomas some time.

The death of their pet only added to the uneasiness of the atmosphere that night- usually during a job, they were both fairly lighthearted about what they did. Tonight was different. After staring at the fire in the large machine for a few seconds, Thomas turned back to James, wiping his forehead and grabbing some new gloves as he accepted the fact that he was just overtired. 

"Can we get back to this autopsy?"

"Please?"


	3. Chapter 3

As they re-entered the morgue, they found that the radio station had changed yet again, but the two couldn't be bothered switching it back; it was cutting in and out too much anyway. Halfway through cutting into Peggy's stomach, a weather report did come in clear enough-

_"Storm -- get much worse. If ---- in, make sure to ---- precautions."_

James turned to Thomas, and Thomas looked at the clock on the wall. It was ten minutes to midnight, and things were getting rough out there. "Do you think we should head upstairs, Jem? Maybe tuck in for the night, finish this at daybreak before Burr comes?"

"What, in the middle of this, Thomas?" James knit his brows. "We can't just leave her, when there's a million things we haven't done."

"Yeah," Thomas sighed, "Yeah, no, you're right." James pressed a small kiss to Thomas' cheek.

"What's wrong, love? You're normally the eager one to..." he cleared his throat, trying to do his best impression, " _Slice and dice!_ " That brought a grin to Thomas' face, and he fiddled with the scalpel.

"No, it's not that I want to... y'know, abandon this. At all. I mean, I'm just as intrigued as you are. I just don't know if it's safe down here right now."

"The storm will pass," James affirmed, "In time. Right now, time's not something we've got. Unlike you, Thomas, I actually take Burr seriously as a man of the law, and we're supposed to have this autopsy done by morning, so I don't care if I'm up 'til 6, I'm going to finish what we started."

"No matter how fucking weird this is getting," Thomas nodded.

"Exactly," James said, and turned to the table to finish opening her stomach all the way. Once they had cut in, Thomas removed something with some tweezers- as he pulled, it kept coming out, until they finally reached its end.

"What the hell is this, now...?"

"An unnaturally long thread," James squinted.

"Yeah, I can see that, sugar. But what does it-" Thomas checked again, and found a small pouch deeper inside her stomach, with remnants of some sort of-

"Plant," James finished Thomas' thought, and the two looked it over under a microscope. Thomas knew he had seen that before... rushing over to their bookshelf, he picked one out and began flipping.

"Here!" he presented the page, "Datura Stramonium, or jimsonweed. No, not my kinda weed, something else entirely."

"What does it do?" James asked, feeling the texture of the plant residue, "I'm assuming it's not a herbal healing remedy," he added in deadpan.

"It fucks you up," Thomas exhaled, "Like, not psychedelically or anything- it paralyzes you."

"A paralyzing agent," James mused thoughtfully, "Well, that fits the bill."

"And here's the piece de resistance," Thomas held a finger up, "It originates from the same place the stuff under her nails does!"

"Okay," James nodded, walking briskly over to the board to scribble some arrows and ideas down, "Okay, this is progress, this is good."

"Now, for the other thing in her stomach," Thomas said, and the two men returned to the tableside, removing the small pouch where the thread had come from. There was something inside the pouch, what felt like a small, hard object. James opened up the bag, and his mouth curled a little.

"It's her missing tooth, Thomas."

"That was in her stomach? Wrapped in this weird-ass little bag?" Thomas huffed, rubbing his temples.

"The plot thickens," James sighed.

"This plot is thicker than my dick," Thomas muttered, and the two men just stared at each other for a very, very long time before bursting into simultaneous laughter. It felt good to laugh- the tension had begun to feel stifling, making both feel extremely claustrophobic in the dimly lit room. They needed the diffusion, or they would probably go mad.

"Alright, let's take a look at this." James took the little bag over to the light and microscope for closer scrutiny, Thomas peeking over his shoulder. His arms reflexively wrapped around James' waist from behind, his thumb rubbing deft circles into his hip. It was comforting, an attempt to further alleviate some of their stress. James immediately hummed appreciatively, leaning forward a little so that he could really see what the pouch was.  

"There are markings."

"Right... looks like roman numerals," Thomas added, squinting without his glasses.

"They're oddly placed... inconsistently scattered down the sides. There are symbols, too... almost occult-looking."

"There's no damn pattern to these markings," Thomas mused, "Sounds like this whole autopsy." There was a pause, and James jolted so fast Thomas let out a yelp.

"Ah! We may be able to find one!" the shorter man exclaimed, clapping his hands together and pacing. "None of the internal wounds are externally visible, yes?"

"Yeah..." Thomas raised an eyebrow.

"The only plausible conclusion here is that she was tortured, murdered- or died from the trauma, we'll figure that out later- then cosmetically altered _after_ death."

"I... suppose," Thomas went on slowly, "It's possible, but we're really grasping at straws here, Jemmy."

"We have no choice," James replied curtly, with a sharp glance up to the clock that now read- fuck, was it really 1:45 AM?- and went back to the chalkboard. "It's obvious that Peggy was tortured. I know that's still considered an assumption, but it's a scientifically guesstimated one, and I think we can agree that it's both valid and sound."

"Sure," Thomas nodded, resting against the counter.

"Stabbed a ridiculous amount of times. Mutilated. Bones broken. Made to eat her own tooth by what seems a whole hell of a lot like religious fanatics..." he faltered. "But why?"

"Why's not our problem," Thomas shook his head, "Back on track."

"Right, fine... so she's had all this stuff done to her, then when she finally dies, they try and cover up all their hard work." Thomas scoffed at this.

"Sick fucks. I have a newfound respect for Burr and what he does. Kind of."

"You realize what we have to do to prove this hypothesis."

Thomas began to smile, catching on and standing back up. He turned around and grabbed a sterile knife. "So, we need to see if the skin is where this supposed "immunity" ends!" James nodded, and grabbed another knife, taking Peggy's right side with a quick glance down to the troublesome corpse. Her eyes still remained straight ahead, unblinking and wide. Thin eyebrows hooded them, long brown curly hair tumbling down. Thomas took the liberty of slicing the excess locks of hair off- they didn't need that getting in the way. The radio still at a steady thrum of static and the thunder outside booming, they began to cut... after a few minutes of careful, medically trained cutting of the appropriate areas, James and Thomas began to peel back Peggy's first epidermal layer. Expecting to find confirmation in their hunch and the answer to their great mystery, they moved the lamps in closer...

"Oh my god," James whispered and Thomas dropped his scalpel with a clatter. There was no evidence of cosmetic alteration- only markings, exactly the same as those on the pouch, emblazoned on the underside of her skin.

Shocked into silence, the two stared at the unsettling symbols for what seemed like an eternity, hearts sinking. Just as Thomas went to talk, everything happened at once- all the bulbs blew out with a loud shatter, a thunder clap echoed, and the radio started blaring that same song that had been playing all night at full volume. James crumpled down, covering his ears, but Thomas couldn't move, couldn't speak as one light flickered back on in the corner.

There, where all the bodies should be, were empty vaults, doors wide open.

"James," Thomas finally brought himself to say calmly.

"Thomas," James squeaked, crawling over to him. They held each other, and Thomas started to back away toward the door. The radio died, and the last bulb began to fizz out.

"We should probably leave."

"What-" James started, then he saw it too. The only body left in the room was the unmovable, undecipherable Peggy Schuyler. "Holy shit."

"We gotta go, we gotta go-"

The two threw open the door, leaving what was left of Peggy on the table, and ran to the elevator. This time, Thomas didn't dare sneak a peek in the corner mirror, just ran with James. They hit the button, but it wasn't coming fast enough.

"Shit, shit," Thomas growled, "Damn stupid fucking piece of shit rust-bucket! Why didn't I fix that this morning?!"

"The cellar escape?" The two ran over, pushing up on the doors. There was something blocking it, which they knew to be the huge oak tree in their front yard.

"The exit?"

They both turned to the stairs up, and saw something pass by the door's window.

"Oh hooo, fuck that!" Thomas said, looking around wildly and hitting his husband in the face with his hair. 

" _Thomas_ ," James sputtered, and grabbed him, practically dragging him down the dark, newly terrifying hallway to the next room. It was their unofficial office, the room they stored all their papers, files, and-

"Oh, thank god," the taller man breathed, slamming the door shut, "The landline." They raced over, and immediately dialed.

_"Sheriff Burr speaking."_

"Burr!" Thomas cried in relief, "Fuck, I could kiss you- we need help! We're trapped on the basement level of our house, our dumb fire hazard of a tree that James insisted we kept fell on the cellar emergency door."

"It was an aesthetically pleasing tree," James defended quietly.

"Come get us out, you fucking desk jockey!" Thomas all but shouted, and they listened.

_"T---ohm---- oo---- bare--- up--- hear---- phone?"_

"Dammit, no no no," Thomas growled, and James grabbed the phone.

"Mr. Burr?!"

The line suddenly went dead, and James, in a rare display of distress, slammed the phone down into its hook, collapsing into a chair.

"How the hell are we gonna get out of here?" Thomas mumbled miserably, going over to the small bathroom connected to the office. He checked the window, but it was too small to even fit two arms through. He turned to the sink, running some cold water and splashing it on his face. His hair drooped a little, tendrils wet with droplets, and it felt amazing... but when he looked back down to the running water, he realized it had gone a brown-ish colour.

Like the pete under Peggy's nails.

"Well... we could always- Thomas, are you alright?"

Thomas backed away from the sink, wiping his hands furiously. "Yeah... it's just..." He shut off the sink, letting out an anguished yell. "This is all bullshit!"

"I suppose we should have gone on that date," James remarked, folding his fingers together, and Thomas let out a huff.

"Fuckin' right."

James looked down. "We'll find a way out. Then we can-" He was once again cut off as he looked over to his husband, and noticed something behind him standing in the shower. "Behind you!!"

Thomas whirled around, but the bathroom door slammed just as a loud smash could be heard. James ran forward, and used all of his strength to pound and pound on the door until it gave.

"Are you okay?" he worried, bending over. Thomas was on the floor, groaning. The shower curtain had been pulled, rings scattered everywhere, and there was a little blood on the toilet seat, from where Thomas had obviously gone down.

"Pupils?" Thomas managed to croak, and James tried his best in the low light to examine how identical his pupils were for concussion.

"Good," James breathed, and looked down the rest of Thomas' body. There were bruises forming all over the place. "What happened to you in here?"

Just then, they heard a soft, almost inaudible creak outside the door to the office, and both fell deathly silent. Creeping out of the bathroom and over closer to the door, Thomas got down on the floor, wincing as his head spun a little. Looking under the crack out into the dark hallway, the two listened until they couldn't hear anything but the sound of their own breath... and the tinkling of a bell on a passing pair of feet.

James' eyes slowly closed, and Thomas covered his mouth, shooting back.

"Jemmy, James, f-feet, bell, n-n-night of the living dead," was all Thomas could manage, and James moved a chair in front of the doorknob.

"Okay... so this is happening," the shorter man breathed in, and looked up at the ceiling. They could deal with this, they could... then again, they were qualified to deal with deceased corpses, not walking ones.

Fuck, how things had escalated.

"James, we-"

Interrupting Thomas, the doorknob began to rattle, jolting them both into holding each other. Loud bangs on the door became increasingly louder and louder still, until they ceased altogether.

"We need to burn her body," Thomas affirmed in a hushed tone, and James nodded once. Moving the chair with a faint scraping noise against the floor, they listened one more time before cracking the door ajar.

"On the count of three," James bit his lip, "One... two..." Thomas jumped out early, making a run for it. James quickly followed, almost losing his footing and his husband in the dark on their way back to the morgue. Once they made it into the room, Thomas ran over to get the body bag as James lifted Peggy up to place her in, but just as they ran back to the door to get to the crematorium, the locks turned.

"Son of a bitch!" Thomas shouted, voice jarringly loud in the atmosphere of silence. James looked around from where he was holding Peggy.

"Over there!"

Thomas turned, and saw that James was looking at the emergency axe. He broke the glass with his elbow, turning back and looking angry as all hell with slightly torn scrubs and hair flying everywhere. He painted an intimidating picture- his muscles were bulging against his shirt, arms visible through the rips, and James would be lying if he said he wasn't turned on at least a little, but now wasn't the time or place to be thinking like his husband usually did.

Swinging the axe at the door, Thomas waited for it to splinter before trying again. After four good chops, a large hole in the door appeared, and the two men looked out. The light in the hallway remained extremely dim, so it was almost impossible to make out anything that could have locked them in from out there. Reaching out through the hole, Thomas began to work on unlocking it, but something caught his eye.

"Bring your hand in, now," James warned, and Thomas did slowly, listening as the bell sounded again. The tinkling sent chills down the coroners' spines, as it would any, but the real horror came from the sight before them.

"Is that...?"

"Charles Lee," James confirmed, tightening his lips into a firm line. There, stalking down the hall toward them, was one of the missing corpses- the one that had his face blown off.

"Jemmy," Thomas whispered, eyes tearing up in fright, and he clutched at his side where the bruises were beginning to sting even worse.

"We're burning it here," James said, then whipped around and plopped Peggy back onto the table with a loud noise. After drenching her with some kerosene, they looked around, trying to think of a way to light her up... they were screwed if they couldn't make a spark.

The idea hit them at once. "Your lighter!"-"My lighter!" they exclaimed at the exact same time, and Thomas dug around his pockets frantically for it. When he found it, he tossed it over to James, who found he was thanking the almighty for his husband's less than sanitary habit. Flicking the lid, the flame was tossed onto Peggy, and they were temporarily blinded by the blaze.

 _We're going to be okay,_ Thomas thought.

 _She'll be at peace now,_ James thought. 

Then the blaze billowed up, spreading all over the walls. In a frantic rush, Thomas grabbed the nearby extinguisher and put the flames out, not before it could destroy the evidence of this case. All that registered with them as the smoke cleared was the un-blistered, smooth skin of Peggy's body, the unblinking grey orbs that stared at the ceiling, and her closed mouth that had previously hung open. James simply walked over, and after a long, studying look down at her, reached over to the instrument table.

"What are you doing?"

"This corpse is the only thing standing in the way of us and the truth."

"This shit is crazy..."

"Trust me, I would be saying the same thing if I didn't just see a corpse we dissected two weeks ago walk down the hall. We're going to finish this autopsy."

The clock in the room struck 4 in the morning, and ground moisture from the endless storm began to leak down the walls.

"Alright," Thomas sighed, and James picked up a bone saw.


	4. Chapter 4

After removing the top of Peggy's skull to check her brain, Thomas began to run tests that they hadn't had the chance to before, as James wrote some of the spoken observations on the  board beside what was beginning to look like a psychopath's mind map. After a second, Thomas found himself feeling lightheaded, and as he tried to take a sample, he ended up collapsing.

"Thomas!"

James came over, and held his head up.

"Shit... sorry. Not slackin' or anything hun, but I'm kind of fucked up at the moment," Thomas tried to grin, but winced, "Both physically _and_ mentally." His bruises were beginning to bleed internally, and it worried James. Kissing his husband on the forehead, the cheek, then the lips, James made sure he was relatively conscious before leaving him propped against the counter, going to finish the job. As Thomas watched, James took some brain cells, and put them very carefully into a small, transparent tray to observe under the microscope. The unfolded pouch was still under the equipment, frayed ends still inspiring mystery- but James had to deal with the cells first and foremost.

"They're..." he squinted further, and blinked, devoid of any emotional reaction at this point, "Moving."

Thomas glanced up, eyebrows knitting, and he tried to pull himself up to see. Reluctantly, James helped him, and the two took turns staring through the microscope, just to confirm they weren't completely out of their minds yet.

"The cell tissue is active," Thomas nodded, running a hand through his curls, "That means she's still conscious."

"She's been conscious this entire time while we..." James suddenly felt his breath hitch, a sick feeling spreading in his stomach. Turning to the sink, he dry-heaved for a few seconds before Thomas put a hand on his back, rubbing up and down soothingly.

"There is absolutely no way we could've known, James. It's against protocol to begin with the cerebrum." James didn't reply. "But this still doesn't answer our questions about the bag planted in the stomach, and... frankly, it doesn't answer anything! She was dead. She _is_ dead, but she's... somehow self-aware, without being alive or catatonic."

"That makes no sense."

"And the bag, well, there're markings on that thing that don't have any rhyme or reason."

"If we don't figure this out..." James trailed off, turning back to look at the corpse apprehensively. Thomas shut that idea down as it stemmed.

"Fuck that, it's almost morning. We're so close, Jemmy, I can taste it. Now..." Thomas suddenly frowned, and took to the microscope again as he doubled over in pain. The corner of the pouch, which had been moved aside haphazardly by James, was folded over on itself to reveal-

"James, take a look at this!"

James peered through the lens, and saw that the roman numerals and random letters came together, if folded in quads, to spell out a bible passage. "A bible passage," the shorter coroner breathed, "My god, how could we have discounted that?"

"We're both a pair of genius idiots," Thomas scoffed, grimacing at his own pain, and James went over to their shelf of books. The bible had been tossed between a few medical journals, mostly because Burr said it helped friends and family of the deceased rest easy knowing the practice was a fairly 'religious' one.

Sure.

"1693... must be the year. That explains the corset trained waist... and there's no point trying to refute her epidermal immunity anymore, regardless of the fact that she's been dead for over two hundred years. What does the rest say?"

"Uhhh... Leviticus, 20:27."

James flipped to the corresponding pages in the worn copy of the religious text, and his eyes fell to the short passage. "Witches."

"Witches?"

"Witches."

"But..." Thomas leaned against the table for support, fingers grazing Peggy by accident and causing him to repeal, "But the witches weren't... witches! The 16th century Salem Trials was mass hysteria, James, we're intellectuals, we know this, everybody _knows_ this!"

"Not the people who did this to Peggy," James mumbled solemnly, and closed the book with a sharp snap. "They must have created this dark force, whatever it is, from the pain they caused her." He thought of something, and went back over to the bookcase, pulling a large historic volume out. He went back to the sixteen hundreds, and landed his finger right on notable families during the Salem witch trials.

"Schuyler.... Schuyler..." James mumbled, until he found the name. "Here!" Thomas came over, and James read aloud. "Angelica and Elizabeth Schuyler were accused of powerful witchcraft, much worse than the likes of the small town they lived in had seen before. The sisters fled, leaving the youngest of the three, Margaret Schuyler," James glanced up to share a look with Thomas, "To receive the punishment for the sins of her family."

"Well. That certainly explains her penchant for revenge," Thomas muttered, scowling.

"This all happened in Albany, New York."

"Where the pete and the paralyzing plant are found!"

"Yes. She was innocent, but they believed they were eradicating the evil by cleansing her body and torturing it out of her." James looked over to Peggy, almost feeling a pang of sympathy for her. Then he remembered what all this had done to Thomas, who was now visibly declining, and his feelings were once again buried.

"Ignorant, primitive superstition," Thomas rolled his eyes, shaking his head and pursing his splitting lips, "The only thing I detest more than ignorant, primitive medical procedures."

"If you try really hard, you may be able to sound less conceited in saying that," James raised an eyebrow, but his husband just scoffed, shivering. Silence befell them as the mood once again turned dire.

"Do you think they're still out there?" Thomas asked softly, stealing a glance back through the splintered hole in the door.

"Don't think about them. All we need to focus on here is Peggy Schuyler, and finding some way to end this."

Suddenly, Thomas cried out in pain. The internal bleeding had spread so much that he was risking a serious aneurism. He looked up at James, eyes wide with a fear that James had never seen before in his cocky, unapologetically over-confident husband.

"Is there anything we can...?"

"I," James inspected the bleeding. He wanted to say yes, he wanted to say there was something they could do, because they would find something, it always worked out and it would again, but... they couldn't find a way out of their house, every escape was blocked, there was no way any car could get out here in this rain, not that they would be able to call for one...

"So, there's nothing."

"Thomas, I went to medical school," James growled, the panic beginning to set in, and Thomas huffed a weak laugh, clutching at his middle.

"So did I, doesn't change the fact that I got attacked by a _ghost_."

"We don't know it was a-"

"Fuck, shut up," Thomas smiled, "Kiss me."

James frowned, and took a good look at the man in front of him. The fucking asshole, the dipshit stupid god damn asshole was putting on this big show of 'kiss me' with that sad smile, pretending like he's going to fucking _die_? As fucking if!

James ripped out of Thomas' loose clutch, backing away as his arm fell limp on the cold tiled floor.

"Jemmy... c...c'mon..." Thomas murmured, eyes drooping sleepily.

"Margaret," James turned to the corpse, staring deep into those clouded eyes, "I'm so sorry for what they did to you. But you've got to understand... he can't die."

"James, what're you...?"

"Give it all up. Everything they did to you, give it to me. You don't need revenge. Just _go_. Move on and leave everything in the past behind, everything your sisters did that you got blamed for. Everything you did to him!" he pointed angrily at Thomas, as if she could see.

"James, stop-!"

"Please," he whispered, taking Peggy's hand, "Give it all to me." Just like that, her eyes turned a deep shade of brown, her original colour, and James fell over, clutching his chest. Thomas found that he had a renewed vigor, so he bounded up, rushing over to his husband's side.

"James, James, James, what did you do, what's going on?!"

James convulsed on the floor, unable to speak all of a sudden. The bruises that had disappeared from Thomas began to form all over James, and Thomas' eyes widened.

"No..."

James was trying to say something. He kept clutching at himself as tears rolled freely down his face. Thomas finally caught on to what was happening- everything that had been inflicted on Peggy was being transferred into James, and fast. "James, no!" Thomas continued to chant, tears matching his dying husband's, "You fucking idiot... you can't do this!"

James' fingers twitched over to the nearby scalpel, which was lying on the ground from where Thomas had dropped it earlier. "No," Thomas swallowed, "I'm not... I can't-"

"Please," James hissed, and Thomas looked back at him, how desperate he looked. How could it have escalated this far?! From another routine coroner report!

He couldn't take the writhing. He couldn't take James' little whimpers of pain as his ankles and wrists cracked. He had to end it, and the coroner screamed as he did. Then he crumpled back, into the table. Peggy laid there, indifferent.

Thomas sobbed, pounding a fist into the table and staring straight into her eyes. "What have you done?!" he screamed, and repeated this until his voice began to go hoarse. Just as he was about to take the knife and take his own life as well, he heard someone call.

"Thomas! James! You in there?!"

Thomas gasped a little, and stumbled over to the door, knocking the remnant of it down to get to the emergency exit. He walked up the stairs, James' blood from his hands staining the unfinished railing, and knocked on the cellar door leading up to the front lawn.

"Burr!" he called, "Open it!"

The door quickly opened, the storm even louder now. Rain blew at the sheriff's jacket as he offered a hand.

"Burr, goddammit, thank you-"

"Why the long face?" Aaron asked him, giving him a wide smile. Thomas frowned, taken off guard.  

"H-huh?"

Then Burr began to sing. " _Just let the sunshine in... face it with a grin! Smilers never lose... and frowners never win, so let the-!"_

Thomas stumbled back, watching as the man before him laughed and laughed and laughed. Face contorting, Thomas began to panic again... then he heard it; the soft creak.

He turned, and saw James standing right next to him.

"Thomas."

Thomas didn't see that he had reached the railing. The coroner hit the faulty wood, falling down, down until he hit the ground at a breakneck angle. Then the radio turned back on.


	5. Chapter 5

The next morning, Burr stood on the front lawn of the spacious rural Jefferson-Madison estate, looking up at their oak tree, which was standing proudly as ever. People came out of the building with the two bodies on the stretchers, one taller than the other, bags zipped up to the heads.

"I'm sorry sir," someone said, awkwardly attempting to console him, "I... know you knew them well from school."

"Everyone did. Small town. This is very weird," Burr commented, scratching his chin, "All that, and the girl's body was left out like it was. You didn't find the documented recordings, Maria?"

"No sir," Maria muttered, "Everything in the morgue was rubble but her. It was as if someone tried to burn the whole room down."

Burr felt a shiver run through him, despite the weather being sunny and warm for the last four days and nights, and made a decision.

"Get Peggy Schuyler in a truck, and have her out of my county by noon."

"Sir?"

"Someone else can deal with this problem. Uh, send her to... Alexander and John, they're great."

Maria made no move to question him further; only nodded, and walked off to do as he had asked. Aaron nervously looked at the house one more time, shook his head, and got into his squad car. Thomas and James were dead. Yes, Burr had seen some things, but never like this in the small Virginian county. It was vexing, and he was glad to be rid of what seemed to be the source of their problems- the corpse of Margaret Schuyler.

In the opposite van, Peggy was rolled out into the back, body bag zipped all the way to her face. Her eyes had since clouded over again, mouth slightly parted to reveal the severed tongue she had been wheeled in with. The unassuming driver waited until the doors were closed, pattering his fingers against the wheel. After a second, he started up the ignition to drive the corpse out of town and into the safe hands of the next qualified coroner, per Burr's request.

What the driver didn't pick up on as he turned up the classic rock station, was the quiet tinkling of a bell on her big toe and the twitch of her bottom lip.

**Author's Note:**

> Well that was a lot like Hamilton. 
> 
> All fun and games in the first act. 
> 
> Then it went to shit in the second. 
> 
> Sleep well!


End file.
